Frostsong
by TheRogueParadox
Summary: Jack has amnesia… again. But being powerless and visible, Jack isn't sure whether he's Jack Frost, or a crazy kid with a bump on his head. Everyone else is convinced he's a human teenager, but can Jack convince himself and start blending in instead of sticking out? Sometimes, what you wish for isn't what it's cracked up to be. TW: Self Harm/Drugs/Alcohol.
1. Chapter 1

**Alright guys, just one little note before we get rolling, and that is on TRIGGER WARNINGS. Just so you all know, this story is going to get kind of intense later on****. At least, if I write properly. I apologize in advance for anyone where that might make it hard to read, but I was really trying to capture a slice of the teenage life, and I felt like these were all big aspects in one way or another of my high school years, so I put them all in there as big aspects of Robyn's and Jack's high school years.  
**

**So, there will be reference to self harm scars, possibly some actual scene with it happening. Suicidal ideation goes hand in hand with that, obviously, and since we're in first person, that will be sharing Robyn's experience pretty intimately. There's also strong references to abuse of drugs and alcohol, though this should eventually have a happy ending. **

**A few things that will be briefly mentioned, but not dwelled on are war, September 11th, death, foster care, innuendos, terminal illness, and of course, Robyn swears like a sailor. Or tumblrite.  
**

**I really believe that since none of these are going to get super graphic or detailed, that this is proooobably going to be rated as a T, though it's still intended for teens who can deal with tough subjects. If there are too many people who have trouble with this, I'll gladly bump it up to a M, no problem. It's one of those grey area fics, unfortunately. **

**Anyway, enough babbling, on with the story! Hope you enjoy!**

Combat boots are probably the best kind of shoes to ever exist in this world. That's the way I've felt ever since I inherited my first and only pair of combat boots from my brother, and that's the story I'm sticking to. Combat boots. Awesome. End of story.

Being that combat boots are as awesome as everyone now knows they are, I wear them every day. But I was especially glad I was wearing them that day. Because among their many purposes, combat boots are great for stomping in. The first day of school always calls for a little angsty teenage rebellion life-is-unfair stomping, if you ask me.

Plus, on top of the general unfairness of going back to school, I had Natural Science for my first period. As if my being in Natural Science for sophomore year wasn't bad enough, they had to go and make sure it was the first thing of the day I would experience. And don't ask me who they are, because I honestly have no idea who makes the schedules. But they obviously have it in for me, for sure.

You see, Natural Science is a sort of stupid class for freshmen. And the admins of the school always make sure to emphasize that there's no shame in taking a remedial class, that everyone needs a little help now and then, and that it's _not_ a stupid kid class…

It's a stupid kid class.

You see, that's how talented I am. I not only flunked science my freshman year, I flunked _remedial _science. So now I was stuck in Natural science my sophomore year. And I knew I was going to be the only sophomore in the class. I didn't even know it was possible to flunk Natural Science and take it again. It was simply unheard of.

I arrived at school super early that morning. Not because I want to do super well this year (I would have had to have a drastic attitude shift at the end of last year if that was the case), or because I like school or anything. I mostly show up so early because there's nothing better to do at home. Really, it's super boring there. Cats and prune juice boring.

So, considering how early I was, I was more than surprised when I walked into the Natural Science classroom and there was a kid already there.

"Hi!" he said, sounding for all the world like it wasn't seven something in the morning. You see, that's how early it was, it was so early that no one even knew exactly what time it was, because the Earth has no use for such accurate timekeeping before nine in the morning. It wasn't even really the sort of response I would expect from a kid who had bleached his hair white. I was expecting more of the silent, brooding type. Not the morning person type. Was that even legal, having people with punk hair who were morning people?

"Hey," I said with a frown as I looked around the classroom. Sure enough, seating chart on top of the overhead projector. Good ol' Mrs. Kingspin. As if it wasn't bad enough that I had endured a whole year of Natural Science with her last year, she also happened to be the only one who taught Natural Science, so I was stuck with her again for another year. I stomped over to the seating chart and started scrolling my finger through the list of names.

Meanwhile, the white haired boy had trailed behind me like he was some sort of lost puppy. Then again, puppies never trailed behind me. They knew better than to follow someone who was just going to lead their innocent puppy lives down a spiraling descent of outlaw puppyhood. Maybe he was a stupid puppy with no sense of self preservation. Run now puppy, before it's too late!

"Whatcha doin'?"

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. I wasn't sure if it was a laugh of funniness, or a laugh of the slightly insane. Freshmen. I was going to have to deal with idiot freshmen puppies like this guy who thought he was punk because his hair was white for the whole freaking year. And they were going to think I was some sort of hero - someone who knew the school well enough to be their guiding star, but someone who hadn't yet succumbed to the dark ways of the Senior Year. Lord help me.

"Checking the seating chart," I said, trying my best to come off as bored and disinterested. maybe even a little cold, if I was lucky. I did _not _- En Oh Tee NOT - want freshman looking to me as some kind of savior for the rest of the year.

As luck would have it, that was when my finger landed on the name _Davenport, Robyn_. Phew! Relief! I could simply go to my seat and let this kid deal with his own problems.

"So where am I supposed to sit?"

This kid had to be messing with me. I looked to his face, expecting him to look oh-so-pleased with himself, but… he wasn't. He just looked excited. And friendly, in how own weird freshman sort of way. I sighed and adjusted my bag.

"Hell if I know," I said, taking a step in the direction of my seat. "I don't even know your last name."

"Frost."

Damn, this kid was unshakable! He honestly expected me to look up his seat for him? Entitled little ass.

I decided that the best course of action by that point would be to admit defeat, get this kid to his seat, and hope that would be where the mentorship would end. Or if it wasn't, that at least his unwavering, determined presence would at least keep all the other freshmen away the rest of the year. I sighed and scrolled my finger through the names again. Frost, Frost, Frost… Weird last name. The kid deserved a joke over that.

And then my finger actually landed on his name. _Frost, Jack_. I laughed and looked over at him.

"Your name is Jack? Jack _Frost_?"

"Yeah?" He was giving me a weird grin that almost seemed a little unsure of itself. Like he knew it was a joke, but he didn't know how it was a joke. I laughed again. Of all the freshman to decide to be my puppy, this kid probably had to be one of the weirdest, and therefore one of the coolest. Funny how often weird and cool go hand in hand.

"Boy, your parents had it in for you, huh?" I said. He still grinned at me, though it looked even more unsure than before. I shrugged and looked at the seating chart again. "You're sitting next to me. I'll show you." I would have considered that a curse just a few short minutes ago, but now I was almost looking forward to the fact that I would get to spend the year with this kid. A boy honestly named Jack Frost.

I went to the middle of the row closest to the door, then pointed to the seat next to me, which Jack gratefully plopped into, stretching out his legs in front of him. It then occurred to me that the other freshmen I had seen around didn't have legs nearly as long as Jack.

"You know, you're awfully tall for a freshman," I said, unceremoniously dropping my bag on the floor and sitting at the desk.

"Really?" he said, laughing. "Everybody has told me that I'm short for my age." I narrowed my eyes at him. Either he lived with a bunch of blind people, or he wasn't a freshman, though I didn't even know how that was possible, since I was the only one retaking the class, and I had never met him before.

"Well," I said, 'How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"You're a _senior_?" And I had felt embarrassed for taking Natural Science my sophomore year. This kid must have been taking it every year since he had been there. Were they even going to allow him to graduate? That sure didn't seem like it would count for the four credits of science a person needed to graduate.

He laughed and shook his head. "Freshman."

Okay, now that was even more confusing than the idea of him having failed Natural Science three times. Who let an eighteen year old into the freshman year? Seemed like either a grave error, or Jack was somehow really really stupid. He didn't seem all that stupid.

"But how…" Words had failed me. Darn words, up and leaving me all the time. Who knew words were so mobile? Do you think when words peel themselves off a page, they make a sound like duct tape getting ripped off of something, or are they more of a silent peeling, like the protective cover from a brand new iPhone?

Jack shrugged and tapped his head. "Amnesia. I might be doing high school for the second time for all I know."

I blinked and frowned. I had only ever heard of amnesia, never actually met someone with that. Was he making that up? It didn't seem like it, judging from his expression alone. Was he going to get offended by anything I did? Was amnesia some sort of disability, or was it more of an illness? Or maybe it was one of those weird things that manages to be both. Who knew? Amnesia was one of those things that happened all the time in movies, but never in real life.

Then, something clicked into place in my head, and I nearly smacked myself in the head. More evidence that people simply were not supposed to function before nine in the morning. I was obviously too tired if I couldn't realize that the kid with white hair in front of me who happened to be named Jack Frost looked so much like the Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians. I decided to blame it on the fact that he wasn't wearing a hoodie. I mean, really, what self respecting Jack Frost cosplayer would wear a couple layed t-shirts and comb out their white hair? It just wasn't right, man.

"You're like the Jack Frost from that movie," I said with a laugh. He looked at me like he was confused.

"What movie?"

Okay, so Jack Frost showed up in a lot of movies - and he did usually have white hair in them, but how could he honestly not know what movie I was referring to? Maybe he just wanted to make sure I was thinking of the same movie as him.

"Rise of the Guardians."

"Oooh, that thing. It's a kid's movie, right?" he said, looking lost in thought. Meanwhile, I tried to focus on not blushing. A kid's movie. Yep, that was the way it was seen. Hence why I didn't go around wearing merchandise from it like Carrie did. I was a teenager, and I wanted to appear as mature as possible, thank you very much. No RotG or MLP merchandise for me, thank you very much. "I haven't seen it."

Wait, what? How could a kid who looked like Jack Frost, had white hair like Jack Frost, who was _named_ Jack Frost not have seen Rise of the Guardians?

"Then again," he said with a laugh, and tapped his head again, "That might be a lie."

Oh, right, this amnesia thing I wasn't so sure about. Maybe he had seen it before he'd lost his memory. Then again, did he really have amnesia, or was he more of an obsessive fan than even my good friend Carrie was, and he was _that_ into RotG - enough to try and _become_ Jack Frost for real?

Nah, that didn't make sense. If that was the case, he would have worn his hoodie and brown pants to school.

"What was your name again?" Jack said, and I laughed.

"Again? I never gave it!"

"Details," Jack said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Either way, what is it?" Suddenly I realized that damn, this kid was an eighteen year old freshman, and a pretty smooth one, at that. He was sure going to be popular with the female half of his grade.

"Robyn."

Jack blinked. "What, like the bird?'

If I had a quarter for every time that was the first reaction someone had when they heard my name… Well, my bank would probably hate me and love me at the same time for overloading them with quarters.

"_No,_" I said firmly. "With a Y." He looked at me for a minute, then let out a snort of a laugh, which then turned into more laughs, which then became a steady stream of laughing. I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I'm a freaking bird. Get over it."

"No, no, it's not that," he said, grinning at me like a dope and shaking his head. "It's just… ironic."

Okay, the kid was eighteen. He claimed to have amnesia and all, but maybe he was less naive than he let on. Maybe this kid was high on something or another. It sure seemed like it. Though it certainly wasn't anything I had ever gotten high on. As far as I remembered. I never remembered any drug that had made me act like a naive dork.

"You know…" he said, waving his hand. "Robins, the bringer of spring, friends with Jack Frost, the bringer of…" he trailed off, noticing my blank expression, then sighed and threw his hands in the air. "Oh, never mind. _I _thought it was funny. No?"

I smirked at him. He still was a dork, but a strangely likable dork. And trust me, that was definitely something that I hadn't started out the day thinking I would say. Or think. Or whatever. "Who said we were friends already, snow boy?"

Jack blinked at me, looking caught off guard. "W-Well, I just thought that… I mean, you don't _have_ to be my friend if you don't want… I just figured _I _was happy to be your friend, but if-"

I snapped my fingers at him, cutting him off. Okay, so the stammering was strangely adorable and endearing, but I didn't want to poor guy to go on justifying himself till the end of time. Well, if talking until the end of time were possible, that is. Is it? Is there even an end to time? It seems like such a strange concept.

"Friends," I said firmly, then shoved my earbuds into my ears. I had done enough talking to fill my quota for at least a week, and I needed a break, whether it was going to offend Jack or not.

But when I peeked at him though slit eyes, he was just sitting there, grinning from ear to ear.

Of course, Mrs. Kingspin was still Mrs. Kingspin, so as soon as she came in the classroom and saw with headphones in my ears, she shot me a glare and motioned at me to take them out, _now_. To which I rolled my eyes and huffed, despite obeying her order. I understand why I can't listen to music in class, I mean, _come on, duh_, I'm not stupid or anything. But there's no reason for her to get so huffy with me for listening before she even came in the classroom.

Of course, at my eyeroll and huff, Mrs. Kingspin just sighed and cast her eyes to the ceiling as if to say, "Dear Lord, what on earth could I have possibly done to deserve being stuck with this nightmare for another year?"

It wasn't as if I was honestly out to ruin her life or anything, I just didn't get her class. And trust me, I had really tried at the beginning of last year. But after going over the material ten million times in a hundred different ways, I started giving up. I mean, there's only so long you can honestly try your hardest before despair and hopelessness kicks in and makes you give up.

I honestly had no idea how I was going to pass that class. Maybe if I was lucky, Mrs. Kingspin would give me passing grades just to get me out of there.

Meanwhile, Jack was still sitting in his seat, grinning like a crazy person. It was hard not to let a bit of a smile creep on to my face as well, even though I could feel panic beginning to writhe in the pit of my stomach at the thought of another year in Natural Science. Who knew, maybe Jack was crazy, but all the best people were crazy anyway, and he was that addictive kind of crazy anyway. The kind of crazy you couldn't help but love.

"Alright, class!" Mrs. Kingspin said, clapping her hands together for attention. "Welcome to Natural Science! I want to start by going around the room and introducing ourselves so we can all get to know one another!"

"Wa-freaking-hoo," I muttered under my breath with a heavy sigh. This one activity was probably going to take up most of my day. Good ol' teachers and the classic 'Let's get to know one another!' crap. Like a million introductions in one day actually helped any of us remember who was who.

"So tell us your first and last name," Mrs. Kingspin said, then paused and looked at me, "_Grade_, favorite food, and, since this _is_ Natural Science, your favorite season."

I stifled a groan and slid downwards in my seat. We hadn't had to state our grade last year, we had all known that every one was a freshman. But not every one was a freshman this year. Great. Mrs. Kingspin was making me stick out like a sore thumb. On purpose too, the bitch. Was there some way for me to fight back or get revenge for that?

"I'll start, and then we'll go alphabetically," Mrs. Kingspin said as she leaned against her desk. Her tone was far too chipper and excited, I decided. "I'm Laura Kingspin, your teacher, my favorite food _has _to be Pad Thai, and my favorite season is summer. Next, uh…" she glanced down at the seating chart, and then pointed to the girl in the first row. "Liz Ashford, you're up!"

As a mousy girl stood up and stammered her way through her introduction, I decided that this year was probably going to go way too slowly for my taste. First, I had no idea how I was going to pass Natural Science this year when it had been completely over my head last year. And second… Well, second was Mrs. Kingspin. For whatever reason, she seemed to have taken it personally that I had failed her class last year.

Well, maybe it was kind of personal. She hadn't helped me very much when her teaching methods had failed. It wasn't like I had _wanted_ to do Natural Science two years in a row.

If anybody had asked me - which they hadn't, but still - I would have told them that Mrs. Kingspin didn't really belong in a freshmen Natural Science class. Her bright personality and way of talking to kids like they were stupid seemed like she was better suited for teaching kindergarten or first grade. But what did I know? I was just a student who had to suffer through her teaching. It's not like anybody actually cared what I thought or anything.

It was then that I realized how to fight back against being singled out. If Mrs. Kingspin wanted to make me stick out, fine, no problem. Two could play that game. I was going to make myself stick out even more. It wasn't as if I wanted to be all buddy-buddy with a class full of freshmen anyway. So I ignored the next few introductions (like I cared) and instead focused on planning the answers to my own introduction.

When it was my turn, I slid to my feet and tried to force my expression into resting bitchface. I had already decided on an all black outfit that morning to mourn my lost summer, so I figured that playing the part of the goth girl would work well enough. Hey, it would make people leave me alone, and that didn't entirely sound half bad. It wasn't as if my attempts to make friends last year had gone well.

"I'm Robyn Davenport," I said, trying to sound monotone. Did I sound monotone? God, being apathetic took such hard work. Ironic really, that I cared so much about not caring.

"_Sophmore_," I added, shooting a glare at Mrs. Kingspin. She just narrowed her eyes back at me. Bitch. Funny how that easy-going, kindergarten teacher personality could be stripped away so easily when it came down to it. Though, I supposed, even kindergarten teachers would have to get bitchy every now and again. Kindergartners _were_ murder. Not as bad as high schoolers, but murder, all the same.

"My favorite food is squid," I said, and sure enough, like clockwork, there were several groans around the room. On impulse, I decided to take it a step further.

"And the tears of my enemies," I added, and Jack snorted. "And my favorite season is fall. Because everything is dying."

I then slid back into my seat, trying my absolute hardest not to crack up at everyone's expressions. Everyone in the room, Mrs. Kingspin included, looked absolutely horrified. Mrs. Kingspin being horrified made it all the better, considering that you would think that she would have known me well enough to not be surprised. Apparently not, though.

Then I looked over to Jack, and realized that 'everyone' apparently didn't apply to him. He looked even more ready to crack up than I felt, which seemed pretty close to impossible. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to slap him or hug him for seeing through my act. Okay, so the guy had a trigger happy funny bone, but maybe he wasn't crazy after all. Maybe he just, I dunno, loved life or something. Though, I supposed, maybe he saw things differently than the rest of us, being eighteen and supposedly inflicted with amnesia. And cosplaying.

Actually, I realized, piecing together everything I knew about him, he probably just had no fucks to give. About anything. Life probably would be a lot easier to enjoy without any fucks to give about anything.

Which made me realize just how many fucks I actually did give, despite trying to insist to everyone that I had none.

Jack the ever strange aside, my introduction had made everyone react exactly the way I had wanted them to. When people looked at my row, their eyes would glaze and skim over whenever they got to me. I wasn't exactly invisible - more like the elephant in the room - but hey, so long as people were pretending I was invisible, I was pleased. It at least meant that Mrs. Kingspin hadn't won the battle. I figured I had embarrassed her more than me, really.

Suddenly, it was Jack's turn, and for whatever reason, I found myself paying attention again. Okay, so, the guy had this sort of unique irresistible charm, I had to admit. And it didn't seem like it was just because he was cosplaying Jack Frost or anything. He was just… likable, all by himself.

"Hi, I'm Jack Frost," he said, jumping to his feet and waving at the class around him like he was okay with the idea of being a kindergartener. The class, predictably, erupted into giggles, and not because of his demeanor. But really, how often did you run into a kid whose actual name was Jack Frost? Even Mrs. Kingspin had to double check the seating chart. Really lady, that hadn't stuck out in your mind when you wrote it down? Not paying attention much?

"Freshman," Jack continued, undeterred. "And my favorite food is ice cream-" More giggles. "-Particularly mint chip. And my favorite season is winter." He paused as the class burst into hysterics and Mrs. Kingspin clapped at them to try and get their attention. Really, I didn't know what else they expected him to say. Jack Frost saying his favorite season was summer would have been majorly lame. But maybe the build up and anticipation had somehow made it funnier.

Meanwhile, Jack sought out my eyes amidst the laughter and looked straight at me. Something about his gaze made me almost uncomfortable, in a way. I felt almost like he knew something about me that I didn't even know myself.

"And I love winter because everything is coming to life," he said. He had the same normal tone, but the rest of the class seemed to be too busy laughing to pay attention to it. it seemed mostly directed at me, anyway. What, because I had said I liked fall because everything was dying? Well, it was true, wasn't it?

For that matter, who the hell went around saying that everything came to life in winter? That didn't even make sense. Sure, winter was beautiful in its own bitter freezing cold way, but everything was dead and covered in snow. Not coming to life. That was spring you were thinking about there, Frost boy.

Meanwhile, the kids in class had taken to whooping and applauding, despite Mrs. Kingspin's protests and calls to order. Jack looked like the cat who got the cream, all smug and proud in his seat.

"Hey, Jack, are we going to have a lot of snow this year?" one kid called out. Jack laughed and shook his head with a smirk.

"'Fraid not. It's going to be pretty mild. I've got to focus on my schoolwork this year."

The class erupted into laughter, a few groans, and one kid calling out, "Screw school! More snow days!" That took several minutes for Mrs. Kingspin to calm down. While I stared at Jack like the crazy person he was. Hey, major respect points for going with the whole Jack Frost thing so freaking well, but I had never seen anyone able to go with it _that_ well, not even Carrie, and she was obsessed.

Jack meanwhile, looked as if he had won the blue ribbon of class introductions. I mean, he practically had, really, if you were the sort of person who liked the idea of getting attention for the entire year for being a dork.

In a way, I almost was jealous of him. The whole school was going to be talking about him the rest of the day, even if he went mute for the rest of his classes. He was going to be a mini celebrity, just because he was Jack Frost and owned it.

I would have killed for an introduction like that my senior year.

The rest of the class was uneventful. At least, relatively speaking. Everyone else after Jack tried to be witty in their own introductions ("My favorite season is summer. So much so, that you could probably say I'm the spirit of summer!" Har har). But no one could compare to Jack's easy and natural charm. And just about every kid in class was jealous of how everyone was looking at Jack like he was a superhero now.

God, if Jack were to tell everyone right then that he had written a book on how to be popular, he probably could have made a hundred dollars right there on the spot.

Mrs. Kingspin did the normal boring stuff that had to be done every first class, like going over class rules, the syllabus, the permission slip for guardians to sign before we could do lab work, and the ever fun handing out of textbooks. I was never sure whether I was supposed to hate the first day of school or not. Because on the one hand, well, school. Yuck. On the other hand, it was pretty much guaranteed to be the easiest day of the entire year. And oh-so-easy to tune out. Class was finished before I even started feeling antsy.

"So, you think you're all tough, huh?" Jack said with a laugh as he grabbed his textbook off his desk. He said it about the way one would say it to a three month old kitten. I shook a finger at him. Unacceptable.

"Watch it, Snowman, I _am_ tough," I said with a snort, poking him in the chest. "Just because you're the new most popular guy in class doesn't mean I'm going to let you get away with murder."

"Gosh, I hope not. I should never get involved in something as messy as murder. All that blood."

I couldn't help but snort at that ridiculous comment. This guy really was priceless. What was with him, anyway? And what was with me liking him? I mean, he was obviously going to be the new heartthrob of the school, the most popular freshman around. Maybe even the most popular kid period. he was eighteen, after all, so even the seniors would respect him. And I never liked the popular kids. Never.

"Is that all you've got?" I said, motioning at his textbook as we headed into the hallway. I had just noticed that the guy hadn't brought anything to class, no backpack, no binder, zilch. "No pens or paper?"

"Uh…" Jack jammed a hand into the pocket of his jeans, fished around, and then triumphantly pulled out a two inch nub of a pencil. "Ta da!"

I blinked. "Didn't you go shopping for school supplies at _all_?"

"Nope."

"Ya know," I said with a snort, "I'm as much against school as the next guy, but, um… why not?"

"Didn't have time," he said with a careless shrug. "Just got released yesterday."

"Released? From what, prison?!" Maybe I had decided prematurely that the guy wasn't crazy after all.

Jack laughed and waved a hand at me. "The hospital, oh tough and mighty one."

"Oh," I said, but the comment had still thrown me off. Had I been wrong in deciding he wasn't crazy? I mean, he said he had been in the hospital instead of prison, but he hadn't specified what kind of hospital. It could have easily been the looney one. And the guy had been pretending to be Jack Frost through all of Natural Science, which _was_ kind of odd. "Do you honestly think you're Jack Frost, or are you just being goofy?"

Jack laughed. "Yes."

I narrowed my eyes at him. A clever dodge. "No, honestly."

"_Yes_."

I stared at him for a minute, trying to gauge what was going through his strange little head. I just could not figure the guy out, and it bugged the hell out of me. Was he crazy, or charming? Or both? Did he honestly have amnesia, or was high school just some big game to him? It was one of the most frustrating things I'd ever known. Even with me standing there trying to decipher him, the guy just grinned at me like he didn't have a care in the world. Weird kid. Why did I like him?

"Show me your schedule," I said finally, resigned to my fate. I wasn't going to admit it, but I was secretly hoping I'd have more chances to try and figure this guy out. And, you know, hang out with him and stuff. But whatever, man.

My eyes scanned quickly over the schedule. Nope, nope, nope… And then, there it was.

"We've got gym and lunch together," I said, handing back the schedule to him. He flashed me another of those trademark grins. Why was I looking forward to gym and lunch? Why did i have to get through three other periods first?

"Cool," he said, jamming the schedule in his back pocket. He then laughed a little to himself. "Ha, _cool_. Punny."

Yeah, see? With anyone else that would have been lame. But somehow, with his charm, it was kind of funny. What a dork.

"Yeah, whatever," I said with a snort, then decided to throw in my own pun for good measure. "Seeya later, then. Stay frosty." He tilted his head back and just laughed as I left him there while I headed off to my locker.

I was only after we had separated that I realized I had forgotten to ask him what he had meant when he said winter was when things come alive.

**Alright, and so ends chapter one of our saga! Yes, for those who didn't know already, to set the record straight, I am a huge Jack Frost dork. This is the first story I've actually published with him in it, so I'd love to hear some of what you guys think!**

**Oh, yes, and my wife made the briefest cameo in this chapter. Ten points to Gryffindor for whoever can spot it first! **

**See you guys soon with another chapter, and thanks for reading!**

**(Holy exclamation marks, Batman. Sheesh. Eager much.)**


	2. Chapter 2

Did I mention that our school happened to be cursed with really weird school colors? Because we are. I mean really, who looks at brown and thinks, "gee, school pride!"? Because I know I sure don't. I think puke and poop.

Granted, brown isn't our only school color. I guess the admins realized that they needed some actual contrast and decided to throw blue and yellow into the the mix. Oh, did I say yellow? Any school admin will tell you that I clearly meant _gold_, not yellow.

The supposed justification for our school's colors is supposed to be that they represent what the landscape looks like around here. Brown dirt, gold corn, and blue sky. Yeah, notice there was no green for grass? Nope, that wasn't a mistake. There's literally nothing aside from the football field for miles. We're actually in the middle of a corn field. How dull can you get?

Oh, and our school mascot? A meerkat. Yep, we're just racking up points on the lameo scale, I know. I don't think the people in charge realized when they were picking mascots that meerkats are indigenous to Africa, not southern Illinois.

Our rivals call us the "meek rats." I'd be lying if I said it wasn't accurate.

In some sort of weird attempt to give us choices and let us pretend we have any say in what goes on at school, the admins in all their admin wisdom, elected to have not one, but three different uniforms for gym. On brown, one blue, and one yellow. And when we start each year, we're allowed to pick what color we want our sweatpants, sweatshirts and shorts in, and mix and match as much as we like. Gym shirts didn't get classified with the rest of the ever so fashionable gym wear and were left as standard grey one-color-fits-all. Poor rejected gym shirts.

Anyway, this was of course a Big Deal for Carrie, who started our first year of high school as a _huge_ Rise of the Guardians fan. _Huge_. And this was back before the movie came out. I know, and I agree, I should be more careful in the future when selecting friends. So she got all excited and fussed for weeks about how she was going to choose brown sweatpants and a blue sweatshirt, and never ever ever wear anything else for gym, because the white t-shirt would ruin her Jack Frost thing going on. I don't even know. Of course, she didn't stick to that promise when we started jogging in 70 degree weather, but the thought was there, and that's all that counts.

I actually opted for the same gym clothes combo as Carrie. I had originally picked it because it was the least _bleh_ outfit of all the different combos I could find (Royal blue sweatpants? Yellow _anything_?), but I ended up getting attached to the fact that it was similar colors to Jack. Okay, I admit, so I kind of think that Rise of the Guardians is really freaking awesome. But at least I don't go around flaunting it like Carrie. And at least it took me seeing the movie to go nuts over it.

Actually, in the end, probably about half the school picked the same colors as Carrie and me, probably because those blue sweatpants and yellow hoodies really were god-awful. Though I think some people picked the all yellow outfits just to try and burn the rest of our eyeballs out. The evil little bastards.

So I guess I could say that I wasn't really surprised when Jack walked into the gymnasium wearing the same blue and brown outfit as Carrie and me. I hadn't seen Carrie in the time since my Natural Science class, so I hadn't had a chance to warn her (or, more accurately, get her worked into a frenzy). I smirked, shook my head and went over to Jack. At least freshmen and sophomores had combined gym classes.

He grinned a face splitting smile at me and waved. "Hey, Wren!"

I froze in my tracks and slapped a palm to my forehead so hard I saw stars. Of all the mistakes people had made with my name over the years, that had to be the absolute worst. The. Worst.

And I mean, seriously, a Wren? On what planet do wrens look like robins? Robins are probably a million times cooler than wrens wish they were.

"It's Robyn," I said with a roll of my eyes. "Remember, the bringer of spring?"

"Oh, right," Jack said with a strange glint in his eyes that made me think maybe it hadn't been an accident. "What can I say? Amnesiac. Bad memory."

I rolled my eyes. "Bad _long-term_ memory, genius. Your _short-term_ memory is fine."

"How do you know? Are you my doctor? I can't remember."

I bit back a laugh. This boy did not need any of my encouragement, and laughing at his jokes I was sure would just make him worse. Darn it, crazy boy, I was supposed to be the queen of witty retorts around this place!

Before I had a chance to respond, an inhuman wail sounded through the air, and Jack slapped his hands over his ears. I sighed and looked to the door of the gym. Carrie. Who knew she could run so fast?

And poor Jack, next thing he knew, had a Carrie-barnacle attached to his side, still making bursts of super excited noise.

"YOUR HAIR IS WHITE, YOUR HAIR IS WHITE! OHMAIGAWD, EVEN YOUR FACE LOOKS LIKE JACK! HI HI HI! I'M CARRIE, WHO ARE YOU?"

Jack, still with his hands over his ears looked at with me with a 'help me' expression scrawled across his face. Well, scrawled in invisible ink, but I happen to be pretty adept at reading invisible ink without holding it under a blacklight. I chuckled and reached out to pry Carrie off the dying boy.

"Carrie, this is not how we treat living people," I said with a sigh. She pouted and shot me an evil look, but let go of Jack, standing up and crossing her arms. Jack hesitantly pulled his hands away from his ears. I was pretty sure Carrie could kill creatures with some of the sounds she made. Very effective in hunting, I suppose, but not very humane. Though it wasn't as if Carrie had ever been a fan of hunting in the first place.

"Yeah, the tornado is Carrie," I said, gesturing towards her. I then turned to Carrie and gestured towards Jack. "First, don't scream, second, his name really is Jack Frost."

Carrie made a sound like she was going to start a scream, then squeaked and clamped her hands over her mouth, staring at Jack with wide eyes. He grinned sheepishly and waved at her. Carried looked at me with wide eyes, then back at Jack, then back at me.

Yep, I knew that she wanted to know exactly how I knew what his real name was, and how well I had gotten to know him, and details, details, details. She'd probably want me to tell her the name of his pet dog if I knew.

"Do you have a pet dog?" I asked, and Jack looked at me like he was torn between being surprised and amused.

"Not yet. As far as I know. Why, should I be considering it?"

I looked sideways at Carrie. "It might not be a bad idea."

Carrie glared at me, and pulled her hands off her mouth to speak just as the teacher walked in, clapping her hands at us. I guess that the teacher thought that we were some kind of livestock or something. Do people clap at livestock? Chickens, maybe. Would clapping at meerkats be effective?

"Alright, sophomores, you know the drill!" the teacher said, and pointed to the door. "Everybody outside and on the bleachers! Spit spot!"

Oh great, we had a teacher who thought she was Mary Poppins. Did she think that would make us like her more or something? Because any gym teacher would have to pull out a whole gymnasium full of magic tricks before I would trust them as far as I could throw them. Besides, wasn't she aware that Mary Poppins was evil in the original books? Maybe that was what she was going for. Gym teachers did seem to enjoy being evil, for whatever reason. Maybe they were too much for hell, and the devil decided to spit them back onto Earth just to teach gym class.

I went to talk with Carrie and Jack, only to find that he was already engrossed in something she was babbling about. She seemed to be talking about how great the school was, and how he was going to love it there, and there was a Homecoming dance in a couple weeks, and all the guys asked girls to go with them… Yeah, smooth, Carrie, real smooth. Anybody who has ever talked to you for more than ten minutes would know exactly what you're up to. Trying to bribe the Jack Frost clone into taking you to homecoming. I could only image the sort of scrapbook she would make of the pictures. She'd probably cover every page in snowflakes and hearts.

"Aaah, it's so nice out!" Carrie said, stretching her arms to the sky and grinning. She and I had both elected to wear our t-shirts and shorts instead of the sweatsuit Jack was wearing. The poor guy did look a little miserable in the heat. Wilted even. Like a piece of lettuce left in the crisper. Which is funny, because crispers are meant to keep vegetables fresh, but all they ever do is make everyone forget the vegetables are there so the vegetables all die gruesome, mouldy deaths. Evil crisper.

"Yeah, well, enjoy the nice weather while you can," Jack said with a laugh. "It's going to be pouring tomorrow, and I don't think the teachers will force us outside in that."

"I doubt it," Carrie said with a laugh. "The weatherman is _never _right around here."

Jack laughed. "Yeah, I noticed he was pretty awful. He said it was going to be sunny tomorrow, can you believe that?"

I frowned and looked at Jack. "Then how do you know it's going to rain tomorrow?"

"I just… know," he shrugged, grinning at me. I glanced over at Carrie. She looked ready to die of excitement.

"Cool it, Carrie," I said with a roll of my eyes. "We don't even know if he's right yet." Carrie squeaked and pressed her hands to her mouth again. Jack looked amused.

"Is there something wrong with her?"

"Yeah," I said, shooting Carrie a look. "I'm afraid she has a terminal illness."

Jack looked terrified. "What?"

"Yeah, it's called Fangirliosis. And there's no known cure."

Jack still looked terrified and spun his head to look over to Carrie, who pulled her hands away from her mouth and slapped me across the shoulder. "Oh, Robbie, shut _up_!"

"Don't call me Robbie!"

"You started it!"

"Wait," Jack interrupted, spreading his hands out between us. "Is Carrie in danger, or not?"

"Sure," I said, cracking my knuckles. "She's in danger of me wringing her to a bloody pulp for calling me Robbie."

"But does she have fangirliosis or not?"

I stopped walking, giving Jack a disbelieving look as Carrie fell into a fit of giggles. "For god's sake, Jack, it was a joke!" Granted, maybe it wasn't all that funny of a joke, I did have a tendency to do that more often than not, but gosh. The dude was getting downright terrified that this girl he had just met five minutes ago was going to die from a terminal illness I had made up on the spot.

"Who jokes about terminal illness?" he snapped back, his voice cracking a little. Geez, it was really getting to him for whatever reason.

"She's not really sick," I said, shoving his shoulder a little. "It was a pun. You know, she's a fangirl? Fangirliosis?"

Jack gave me a blank look. "Fangirl?"

I rolled my eyes. There was just too much this guy didn't know. I felt like I was going to be explaining things to him until I was an old lady. Either that, or have a heart attack the next time he actually _did _know something.

"A fangirl is someone obsessed with some show or movie or character or something. In Carrie's case, it means she's obsessed with Jack Frost."

Jack blinked, looking between me and Carrie.

"So she's… obsessed with… me?"

I shrugged. "Close enough, yeah." Jack made a face and looked back at Carrie.

"But why me? There's nothing special about me," he said, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Yes, there is! Your hair is white!"

Jack gave her a disbelieving look. "It just grows that way."

Carrie looked about ready to faint, and I chuckled. Maybe this was going to be an interesting year of high school after all.

Though I had to admit, I was ever so slightly disappointed that Jack wasn't actually pseudo punk like I had initially assumed. His hair _grew_ white? He hadn't bleached it? What sort of hair was that? And seriously, what the hell were his parents thinking? They have a last name of Frost, give birth to a baby with _white freaking hair_, and their first thought is 'Oh, let's name him Jack. That won't make our kid grow up with any sort of complex or anything!'

Actually, the weirdest part was, now that I was paying attention, I could see that when he said his hair grew white, he wasn't kidding. His eyebrows were white. His eyelashes were white. I hadn't seen his bare arms yet, but I was willing to bet that the hair on his arm was white too. I'd never seen anything like it.

"See, Carrie," I said with a slight laugh, "He's not the jack Frost from the movie. Look, his eyebrows are white, not brown." Jack self consciously lifted a hand to his forehead while Carrie curiously peered at his face.

"Oh, that is freakishly cool," Carrie breathed, and Jack gave her a half grin and pulled his hand away. "And who said I thought he was the real Jack Frost, anyway?"

I rolled my eyes and looked over at Carrie. The girl could not be serious. "How could anyone _not_ know? It was kinda hard to miss, Carrie." Carrie hung her head, blushing slightly. Yeah, nice act there, Carrie. I'm not buying it. You'll pretend to be embarrassed for a few minutes, but then you'll go right back to being fangirl all over Jack again.

"So my hair isn't… weird?" Jack said, frowning and looking between the two of us. I snorted.

"Oh, trust me, Jack, it's weird," I said. He looked crestfallen. "But weird doesn't necessarily mean bad. Carrie and I both think your hair is awesome."

He perked up. "Really?"

"Really," Carrie said, biting her lip. "Though, it would look even more awesome if you…" She then reached out and ruffled his hair, making it instantly a million times more similar to the hair of the animated Jack Frost. Carrie giggled and pulled her hand away. "Yeah, that." she then looked down at her hand with sudden realization, her eyes growing huge.

"Oh my gawd, I _touched _it!" she said, squealing and holding her hand up like a trophy. I rolled my eyes, but I was still amused. Okay, so there was a reason I was keeping such an obsessive fangirl around as my best friend. She was usually pretty entertaining to hang around. And not in spite of her fangirliness, but because of it.

"Carrie," I laughed, shaking my head. "Are you ever going to treat poor Jack like a human being?"

"I treat him like a person!" Carrie whined. "He just happens to be a rare breed of spectacular."

Yeah, I noticed that subtle avoidance of her making sure to not call Jack a human. From what I knew of Carrie, there was probably a large part of her that was desperate for Jack to be the same Jack as the one in the movie. And who knew what species he was. Zombie? That didn't seem right.

Meanwhile, Jack was tugging at the collar of his hoodie and breathing through his mouth.

"You okay there, Jack?" I said, leaning towards him and putting a hand on his shoulder. He jumped, looking at me with large, spooked eyes.

"I... Uh… yeah," he said, looking away. "It's just… It's _hot_ out, don't you think?"

"Not a word, Carrie," I said without looking towards her. I heard a muffled squeak. Mmhm. Figures. I just knew Carrie too well. I decided to spend my valuable energy instead on Jack, who was actually looking pinkish now in addition to looking wilted. I was just about to ask Carrie if we should do something when the none other than Coach Poppins herself came over.

"Goodness!" she said, looking Jack over and giving him a glare. "What are you doing out here?"

"You told us to go outside," Jack mumbled, looking up at her.

"Not you, mister," she said, grabbing him by the shoulders and steering him back towards the doors. "I've gotten multiple notes from the hospital telling me that you're supposed to keep your exercise _indoors_. Goodness, you would think someone who had grown up with albinism would know better!"

"I'm fine," Jack whined, giving us a backward look. "I'm just hot. I don't want to go inside. Please." The last word came out as more of a puppy dog whine than actual English, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy. Being excluded sucked, that was for sure. Unless it was in regards to who was going to get shot or eaten by cannibals. Then being excluded was great. And while high school had its similarities to a cannibalistic society, it wasn't quite there yet. And besides, being excluded meant you were more likely to get eaten alive, not less.

"Well, he's right about one thing," Carrie said, and then mimed fanning herself. "He is certainly hot." I shot her a look. It was comments like that that were too stupid to justify with words.

We walked on in silence for a minute as something slowly clicked into place in my head. The teacher had said albinism like it was some sort of disease or something. And I doubted that albinism was some sort of disease of being from Albany. Which meant that…

"Huh, he's an albino," I said, and Carrie looked over at me.

"He's a what now?"

"An albino," I said, looking at her. "The teacher said he had albinism. He's an albino."

Carrie snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. Albinos don't exist."

I slapped Carrie across the shoulder. "Carrie! That's- Well, I don't know what it is, since albino isn't a race, but…" I trailed off, then smacked her good again. "It's not nice!"

"Ow!" Carried clutched her shoulder and shot me a glare. "Well, I mean, they exist, but not here. We're in the middle of nothing. Nothing ever happens here. Ever."

"Yeah, if nothing ever happens here, then you should admit that Jack Frost would never move into town."

"Yeah, except he did. " Carrie gave me a grin cheshire cat style, then sighed. "It's probably the only good thing that has ever happened to this town."

"Yeah, well, why would Jack Frost move here?"

"Because he prefers small towns, obviously! You should know that from how much he loves Burgess!"

I sighed and rolled my eyes. There was absolutely no deterring this crazy girl, was there? She was like a crazy freakin mouse on the hunt through the maze for that one spectacular piece of cheese. Only the cheese happened to be Jack Frost instead of cheese. Though I heard once that mice don't actually like cheese, so maybe she wasn't a mouse after cheese. Maybe she was just Carrie on the hunt for Jack. Then again, maybe mice _did_ really like cheese. You can't believe everything you read on the internet, after all.

"Uh, Carrie, you do realize that this kid isn't _actually _Jack Frost, right?" I said, peering at her out of the corner of my eyes. She made a face at me.

"Says you!"

"Uh, no," I snorted. "Says every sane person, like… ever. Are you saying you're not sane?"

"And proud of it!" Carrie said with a huge grin, sticking her nose up in the air like she was some sort of snotty kid. I rolled my eyes and followed after her. Why was I friends with this crazy girl again? Oh, yeah, because the crazy made things more fun. Usually. Sometimes it just made things more complicated. A lot of times. Usually, actually. Probably like 99% of the time.

But boy, that 1% was usually pretty darn fun. And the complications were fun too, come to think of it. Carrie was just fun. Crazy was fun. Okay, I couldn't blame her for not wanting to be sane.

By then, we had reached the bleachers our teacher expected us to assemble on. The sad thing about gym was that for whatever reason, the assignment of gym lockers for the freshmen was always out of sync with the start of the year. Just the freshmen and new students though. The rest of us had gotten our lockers at the end of last year. But because the teacher were always running around like headless chickens trying to figure out where they could put every one, we always had a good week of doing nothing for gym. Not like any of us complained, though.

But still, you would have thought that the high school, of all places would have had their shit pulled together. I mean, everyone knows that the last thing high school admins ever ever want in high schoolers with nothing productive to do. Assuming that school is productive, of course.

Sometimes I wondered if the people in charge were honestly _that_ stupid, or if maybe I was missing out on some piece of the puzzle. Like, maybe they were aliens or some other conspiracy, and they just wanted to _look_ stupid. Who knows, right?

Besides, it's strangely more comforting to believe that the high school admins are just a bunch of lizard people from space bent on Earth's destruction than to believe that they're idiotic bureaucratic numbskulls. Sad to believe that's honestly more comforting, I know, but them's the beans, folks.

Anyway, I was able to last a grand total of about ten freaking minutes on those stupid bleachers before my jitters caught up with me. I couldn't get Jack off the brain, especially with Carrie babbling non-stop about him, plus it was the first day of school, and I was just overall stressed. And Natural Science had left me on edge for sure. I still had no idea how I was going to pass. Which was beyond stressful. So next thing I knew, my hands started shaking. Then my knees. Then my legs. Soon I felt like I was going to need a clamp to keep the teacher from seeing.

"Carrie," I hissed, desperately wringing and un-wringing my hands. I'm not entirely sure how un-wringing is exactly done, since it sounds like it's only a mildly different approach to wringing, but I was doing it, all the same. That's how stressed I was. "Cover for me," I hissed, and then shot my hand into the air and asked for the great thing about needing the bathroom when you were in an outside gym period was that you had to go all the way back to the main building just to use it. Which was a practical amount of wasted time.

But I wasn't looking for a bathroom or wasted time, I was looking for a convenient cover up for what I was really about to do. As soon as I was out of sight of the class, I found a set of abandoned bleachers and ducked under them.

Lighting up was probably the best thing that had happened to me all day. I could feel worries starting to slide off me like oil on water. Well, then again, I suppose that oil doesn't _slide_ off water, per se, it just can never touch the water. And that was definitely what my worries felt like the more I inhaled. I was water, and my problems were oil.

So who cared if the kid was an albino with the legal name of Jack Frost and Carrie was delusional and I didn't even know what to make of the situation? Who cared if it was the first day of school, and I was only in my second year, and it already felt like I was trapped forever? Who _cared_ if my Natural Science teacher already had it in for me and I had no idea how to get through her class alive?

Really, who cared? Who cared?

I found myself briefly caring for a moment though, wondering why exactly the whole thing with Jack was stressing me out so much. He was just a weird kid, after all. And Carrie was just being Carrie. Nothing new.

But I had, for whatever reason, told this kid I was his friend after only knowing him for, what, five minutes? Who does that? Was that just me reacting to first day stress? Or was that kid somehow actually worming his way under my skin? But why would he do that?

I shook my head and took another drag.

Who cares? Who cares?

Nobody, that was what. Jack sure wasn't stressing out over the whole ordeal, and I was better than this stupid girly worry game. If I kept the act up, I was going to be confiding crushes in Carrie the next day. And that would be stupid. Besides, no one had even noticed I was stressed. No one cared. I took another long, deliberate drag.

Who cares? Who cares? _Who cares?_

Because at that moment in time, it sure wasn't me. And I couldn't see any other sane person as caring, either. Especially not about me and my crazy worrying brain.

**For the record, I agree with Robyn. Carrie needs to be smacked. Her talking about albinos the way she did made me cringe and bang the keyboard a little. But… -sigh- What can you do? Characters will be themselves and absolutely under no circumstance will they be anyone else. -rolls eyes-**

**So how was it? What'd you all think? I can't wait to write the next one, I hope you all can't wait to read it! **


	3. Chapter 3

Poor Jack was sitting out in the hall almost looking dejected when Carrie and I came out from the locker room, back to our normal clothes. As soon as he saw us, he was on his feet and grinning at us. So we were back to the puppy routine.

"So where are you headed next?" Carrie said, looking like she was about ready to start holding hands with him, with or without his consent.

"I'm heading over to lunch with Sparrow here," he said, nodding his head in my direction.

"Oh my _god_!" I growled. "My name is Robyn! How freaking hard is that, huh? Rob! _In!_"

He shrugged and laughed like he didn't have a care in the world. I knew he was doing it on purpose. How could he not be? And I didn't even know why he was doing it. Just to piss me off?The guy was freaking evil, that was what. Meanwhile, Carrie was glaring at me Like something Very Serious had just occurred. Granted, something Very Serious had occurred (I had been mistaken for a freaking Swallow, for crying out loud!), but I had a feeling that wasn't what was on Carrie's mind.

"You have gym _and_ lunch with him?" she said, giving me an angry pout. I was very tempted to palm face. The girl was freaking jealous that I got to spend more time with Jack than her? I mean, granted, he was fun to hang around, so I was looking forward to it, but if Carrie was so set on being friends with him, it wasn't as if it was hard to seek him out outside of school.

"Yeah, and Natural Science too," Jack piped in, ever the cheerful little traitor. Carrie looked at me like she was about ready to murder me.

"Omg, Rob-_yn_, why didn't you tell me?" she said, hitting my arm. Gee whiz, if that was a playful hit, I sure as hell didn't want to ever have Carrie hit me seriously. Oi.

"Uh, well, first of all, last I checked, I didn't have to report every detail of my life to you," I said. And Carrie narrowed her eyes at me. Okay, she and I both knew that I absolutely _did _have to tell her everything that happened to me if it concerned any sort of hot boy, but come on. Jack was a goofy dork that was strangely likable anyway, but he wasn't hot.

No, of course not. Jack Frost was _cold_, not hot. I snorted and inwardly cringed. His bad jokes were wearing off on me.

"And second of all," I continued, shaking myself out of the bad joke zone of my head, "I hadn't seen you until you practically attacked the guy in gym."

Carrie stared at me for a minute, thinking over that, probably debating whether Jack was national crisis enough to warrant seeking her out in the hallways between classes. Eventually she sighed and blew some reddish brown hair out of her face.

"Fiiiiine," she groaned, and then turned to Jack, still as excited as ever. "Can I see your schedule, Jack?" Jack nodded and pulled the paper out of his back pocket and handed it to her.

"Funny how everyone wants to see this thing today," he said with a laugh as Carrie stuck her nose to the paper. I rolled my eyes and shrugged. Comparing schedules was one of those weird high school bonding rituals. It always made the day a little more approachable if you knew what classes you had allies in before you got to the class itself.

After a minute, Carrie yelped and pointed her finger to the page. "There! We have Art together, last period!" I blinked and looked over at his schedule. Somehow, when I had been looking at his schedule, I hadn't thought to actually pay any attention to the classes that didn't match up with mine.

"You're an art kind of guy?" I said, raising an eyebrow and looking over at him. Okay, mild respect points had been earned for that detail, but only because just about every guy I knew was definitely my type. Dark, broody, mysterious, emotional... The art guys were probably the hottest guys in school. And now, apparently, Jack Frost was one of them. He shrugged nonchalantly and waved one of his hands around.

"Yeah, well, it was either art or band or choir. And since I don't have an instrument, and no body ever wants to hear me sing, I decided art was probably the least painful."

"Oh, we're going to have so much fun!" Carrie said, doing a little half dance as she handed the schedule back to Jack. "We have Mr. B, and I heard from the kids that took it last year that he's super fun. He even let them shoot paintballs at a canvas for one class."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like art is more dangerous than I anticipated. Why exactly are we going to war with the canvas?"

Carrie started laughing at that, a laugh that she seemed to have trouble stopping. Yeah, okay, Carrie, he's funny. You'll get used to it with Jack over time. Either that or just keep laughing your head off every time Jack makes a stupid comment, which I wouldn't doubt of her. She probably just found it funny that he happened to be just as much of a goof as the Jack in Rise of the Guardians.

"So what about you?" Jack said with a grin, turning to me. "Are you a soldier on the battlefields of art as well?"

I snorted and shook my head. "Nah, the music army recruited me first."

Jack blinked. "You sing?"

"My cello does, actually."

"You _play._"

"That would be the logical assumption, yes," I said with a snort. Jack was looking at me as if I had just admitted to coming from a royal heritage rather than playing the cello. Meanwhile, Carrie was looking at us with jealous eyes as the bell rang. She sighed and mumbled her goodbyes and went in the opposite direction of the lunchroom.

"So how long have you played cello?" Jack said, still looking at me like I was capable of magic. I snorted and rolled my eyes. What was stranger than his reaction was the fact that I was used to reactions like this.

"Uh... since fifth grade, I guess. So, like... five years?"

Okay, his expression at that was pretty precious, I had to admit. It was as if I had said I had scaled the Eiffel Tower rather than saying I had been playing cello for five years. Granted, cello seemed like a perfectly ordinary thing to me, so it was hard to understand why it would be that freaking spectacular to someone. It was just an instrument. I mean, everybody in my class had started out not knowing how to play, and _they_ had all learned, same as me.

"Look," I said, biting my lip and giving Jack a look. "It's not like it's all that special of a thing, so you don't have to look at me like that."

"But it is special!" Jack said, then took a minute to think. "Look like what?"

"Like I'm some sort of god or something just because I can play cello."

Jack stopped walking and looked at me for a minute, looking deep in thought. I got caught unaware by the sudden stop and walked for a few steps without realizing before I had to turn around and go back to where Jack was standing, still considering me thoughtfully.

"Creation is one of the most important things humans can do," he finally said after a minute. "And therefore one of the most spectacular. Whether you can see it or not, Robyn, you're pretty awesome."

I stared at him for a minute, waiting for him to crack some sort of joke, until I realized it wasn't coming. For once, maybe even the first time since I had met him, Jack was completely serious. And he was being completely serious about a compliment to me. I could feel blood rushing to my head. No one ever complimented me. I was just the weird kid who sat in the back of classes. I turned away from him and kept going towards the lunchroom.

"Wow, you actually got my name right for once," I muttered, and he chuckled.

"Trust me, I'm not as stupid as I like to pretend."

Then it was my turn to stop walking just to give a serious look.

"Okay, what's up with that?" I demanded. Jack looked a little taken aback. "You can sit there and spout off all sorts of stuff about how awesome people are, but then you go around pretending to be stupid all the time? What's with you? You would think if you're sitting they're spouting off stuff about how awesome humans are, that you would realize that applies to you as well!"

Jack looked taken aback, and stood there for a minute just opening and closing his mouth like he was some sort of fish. Eventually, he hung his head.

"I... I guess it's just easier for me to see the good in others than it is to see it in myself."

"Well, remember the next time you're complimenting someone that it applies to you just as much," I said, then turned and went back on my quest to the lunchroom. He chuckled and followed after me.

Okay, I had to admit, people saying really nice things about others and not believing nice things about themselves was probably one of my biggest pet peeves. Probably because I was such a bad perpetrator of it. Jack was right, it really was much easier to see the good outside of oneself than it was to see the good inside. But so long as he was hanging around me, I was going to get Jack to try to drop that habit. I had no idea how to change myself and have good esteem myself, but I wasn't about to let anyone else suffer the same fate as me.

The lunch food was the same stupid sort of lunch food as we'd had last year. Soggy pizza, overcooked chicken burgers, slop from a ladle... Same old, same old. I ended up grabbing a lunchables, a salad, doritos, and a coke, since they were the least likely to be messed up or gross. The salad was questionable, but it was still harder to mess up raw tomatoes and lettuces than "chicken pot pie."

Jack, meanwhile, looked like he had never been in a school cafeteria before. Which, if the whole amnesia thing was true, I supposed that he sort of hadn't entirely been in a school cafeteria before anyway. The poor boy looked completely overwhelmed. I sighed and went back over to him.

"The pizza is okay, but only on Wednesdays and Thursdays," I said, and he looked over at me gratefully. "The more brand names on it, the better it will probably taste. Stay away from anything not already in a serving cup or on a plate, and try to get more preservatives and artificial colors or you'll wind up with something gross."

Jack looked at me and crinkled his eyebrows. "This all sounds completely counter-intuitive. Shouldn't food be picked exactly the opposite way?"

"Food yes," I said with a laugh. "But whoever said any of this was food?"

Jack made a face and turned back to his choices, eventually settling on a lunchables like I had, along with a dirt cup, chocolate milk, and a couple cookies.

"Sweet tooth, huh?" I said with a laugh as we headed through the checkout line. Jack shrugged, seeming preoccupied by the chaos around him. It took me calling out to him three times before he finally realized I was talking to him, and he broke his trance to look over at me.

"Are you okay?" I said, and he shook his head like he was clearing it, put on a weak smile and nodded at me.

"I-I'm just not used to..." he gestured around him at the lunchroom helplessly, unsure how to describe it. It was strange seeing a high school kid looking so freaking out of place in a high school. Granted, high school was a lot bigger than my middle school had been, so I'd been similarly bewildered the first time I'd had to have lunch at high school, but I'd never had it quite as bad as Jack seemed to. The guy looked more out of place than I could have ever guessed.

I was about to try and comfort the poor guy when some big jock type came up behind us, pushing Jack aside to get to the cookies, saying a loud "Move it, ghostface!" as he did so. Jack tripped against me, looking at the guy with wide eyes. I grabbed him by the shoulders and supported his weight. He seemed like he was going to fall down without me there.

"Go back to freak academy where you belong," the guy said, pulling away from the cookies with a handful in one fist as he stared Jack down. "We don't want freaky _albino_s here."

"Oh, fuck off!" I said instinctively. Since when was albino an insult, anyway? Having natural white hair was probably one of the coolest things I'd ever known. Hell, pretty much every magical character ever that I'd adored had naturally white hair just like Jack did. And it wasn't like he looked ugly or anything because his hair was white. I glared at the jock, and he glared back at me, then at Jack.

"Need your girlfriend to stand up for you, huh?" he said with a sneer, then rolled his eyes. "Fucking pussy." And with that, he pushed right through to the front of the line, cutting in front of about ten people in the process. I made sure to look at the back of his jersey. Number 31. Made him easy to track down later, at least.

I pushed Jack back into a standing position and grabbed his food from the counter next to him. The poor guy seemed out of it, and I couldn't blame him. I mean, really, _ghostface_? How juvenile could you get? I figured the guy deserved a break, so I added his food to mine and paid for it all, then tugged him away from the line.

Eventually I somehow managed to drag the preoccupied boy to a table and plop his butt into a chair where we could actually sit and eat, though he was still looking around the lunchroom like he was stunned. I sighed and sorted his food out from mine and shoved it across the table at him.

"For the record, that guy was a major jackass," I said after a minute, peeling open my salad with a shake of my head. Jack gave me a weak smile.

"Actually, he was just a jerk. If you're looking for the jackass, I would have that. Easy mistake."

Oh, good, the guy was at least back to his stupid jokes. I had been worried for a minute that the guy's stupid teasing had actually gotten to Jack. Maybe he had just been shaken up from being pushed. I wouldn't be surprised if Jack had been bruised from the whole ordeal.

"Right," I said with a laugh, pointing my fork at him. "I must have gotten confused. That guy looked so similar to your ass, after all."

"I beg your pardon!" Jack said with a snort. "My ass is _much_ more attractive than that!"

After that, I got a case of the giggles that wouldn't stop. Jack seemed pleased with himself and focused on opening his chocolate milk and taking a sip. He then blinked, made a face at the carton and squinted inside it.

"Helloooo, anybody home?" he said into the carton. I took a few breaths and tried to go back to talking like a normal, respectable human being. Darn that Jack, being funny and such. If there was one type of joke I enjoyed, it was picking on the jerks of the school.

"I-I-Is something wrong with you m-milk?" I managed to stammer out with minimal laughs. Jack shrugged and handed it to me.

"Jack! This is frozen solid!" I said, dissolving into another fit of giggles. Okay, so it wasn't like frozen milk was that funny, it happened more often than I cared to admit at our school. Better frozen than spoiled, though either one was just as likely. It seemed the school didn't know how to control the temperatures of the fridges.

Jack took the milk back with a chuckle. "Poor milk. It put up a good fight."

"What did the milk ever do to you, huh?" I said, still laughing. "Just because you're Jack Frost doesn't mean you have the right to go around freezing every milk carton that crosses your path!"

"Excuse you, I'm Jack Frost, I have the right to freeze anything I want!"

"Okay then, ice boy, freeze summer!"

Jack stared at me for a minute, before he burst out laughing uncontrollably as well. Okay, so maybe my weird giggling fit was contagious. Not like I cared all that much. Strangely, I had forgotten how good it felt to just laugh and laugh and laugh with a friend over something stupid that didn't really deserve laughing over at all.

We finally managed to get control of ourselves somehow, though I wasn't sure exactly how we managed it. Jack definitely seemed to be doing much better than when I had dragged him over to the table. It was strange how he could go from being bullied to laughing his head off without exerting much effort. But from what I had come to know of him so far, that was just the kind of guy he was.

"Jack," I said, and he looked up from his lunchables with a grin. "Your hair honestly is really cool." His grin faltered for the slightest split second, though it never once slipped from his face. His eyes briefly flickered upward, as if he was trying to see his own hair, and then he looked at me again.

"Really?"

"Really," I said, flashing him a grin back. It wasn't even fair that the poor guy was so unsure about his hair. I would have killed to have naturally white hair, and of all things, he was getting bullied for it. But then again, he would be getting bullied for it even if he had bleached it to be that way, I realized. High school did have that nasty tendency of trying to stomp out anything authentic and unique about a person.

"Seriously, Jack, I would love to have white hair." He looked up at me again with a cockeyed smirk.

"Then why don't you bleach your hair so you can?" he said. I snorted and rolled my eyes, grabbing at a strand of my hair.

"Really, with hair this black?" I said, waving the tail of my hair in my fingers. "I'm lucky if I can bleach to something resembling a shade of blond, let alone white. Trust me, it ain't happening."

Jack chuckled, then shook his head and turned back to his lunchables. "The people at the hospital thought I'd bleached mine at first," he said with a shrug. "Then they realized it wasn't growing in any other color, so they said I had a-a..." Jack stammered, then frowned.

"Albinism?"

Jack sighed and nodded, still not looking at me.

"You know, there's nothing wrong about being an albino," I said, biting my lip. How could I have never known that this was a problem? Granted, all I had ever known about albinos was from the movies. Mostly from Princess Bride, actually. Jack was the first albino I had ever met. I couldn't say that I'd had enough exposure to know what they went through.

"I don't know," Jack said, frowning and squirting some pizza sauce more forcefully on the his pizza crust than was necessary. "Have you ever had a doctor tell you that you're supposed to be something that doesn't feel... right?"

"As in... you don't want to be-" I stammered myself. Was saying albino even correct, or was that a slur? "-uh, have albinism?"

"No," Jack said, taking a dainty bite of the pizza. Well, at least he was better mannered than most high school boys. "It just doesn't feel... right. I don't think I have it."

There was a pause as I thought over that, and he chewed on his pizza. Eventually he swallowed and let out a heavy sigh.

"Not like it matters. What else would I be? White hair doesn't just..."

"Hey, it's okay," I said, reaching across the table and placing a hand on his arm. My hand jerked back of its own accord, and Jack flinched. Okay, cliché as it was, the boy was _cold_! I certainly hadn't been expecting that when I had reached over to touch him. I had been expecting.. well, normal teenage boy temperature. Though then I was worrying that I had somehow hurt him by jerking away just because I hadn't expected him to be so cold.

"Jack, sorry, I didn't-"

"No, it's fine," he sighed, waving my words away with his hand. "You don't have anything to apologize for." He stood up, turning away from me. He was saying one thing with his words, but I really felt like I had somehow screwed up really badly. I wasn't sure exactly how, but he didn't want to talk to me, so I must have somehow offended him.

"Jack-"

"No, I'm fine, I just-"

"No, you're not," I said, standing up and grabbing his arm. Boy, if I had thought he was cold before, he was even worse now. It made me shiver a little bit through my clothes. He turned and looked at me, and it was probably one of the most pathetic expressions I had ever seen. He looked really hurt by something, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it was my fault somehow.

"Jack, I'm sorry," I breathed.

"No," he said, reached out and prying my fingers away from his arm. "I am."

And with that, he turned around and left the lunchroom, leaving me bewildered at the table, sinking down in the chair again. Normally, I would have chased someone down after something like that, probably shouting obscenities at them, but something about that approach just felt so wrong right then. Jack had somehow broken my own heart by being broken himself. I had no idea what had even happened.

But damn it, there was still a dirt cup and cookies and doritos and a soda at the table, and I wasn't going to let that money go to waste.

I ate the food almost angrily, shoving it into my mouth and glaring at the brick column nearest the table. I wasn't sure who I was angry at, the jock that got Jack into a bad mood in the first place, or Jack himself, or worst of all, myself, for somehow royally fucking up and not being able to fix it. That was pretty infuriating, in its own way.

As weird as it was, I really liked this Jack kid, despite only having known him for a day. There was something just likeable about the guy. It was easy to tell that his carefree exuberance wasn't fake in any way, and the way he was so earnestly interested in my cello, and just always being a goof was strangely endearing.

And somehow I had hurt this guy who was just so pure and innocent. I wasn't sure exactly how I had done it, but the guy was obviously hurt. And it just seemed like a crime for someone like him to be so hurt.

I didn't want Jack to experience all the crap I had. He was so much better than me. He deserved so much better.

It was around then that I heard several kids throwing a fit and looked up to see what the big commotion was about. There was a cluster of kids around the window, so with a sigh, I threw the remnants of Jack's and my lunch away and went to see what exactly was going on.

When I got close enough to the window, I could see it. There wasn't much, but there, barely visible, were tiny snowflakes fluttering to earth, as if they were unsure it was where they belonged. The first snow of the year. It wasn't unheard of for that to happen in mid-September, but all the same, it was a little disorienting. Even if it was obviously the kind of snow that would peter out and die after a couple minutes and leave no lasting damage. But still. Snow.

Not to mention there was the was the weird coincidence that Jack had run off just a few minutes before this had happened. I reached out and touched the window. It was strangely warmer than Jack had been, even though it was glass with snow on the other side of it. I frowned.

Something weird was going on. Who exactly was Jack, anyway?

And was I going to be willing to believe the answer if I got it?

**Slightly shorter chapter than normal, but this was where the chapter felt like ending, so I let it. I had no idea that the whole concept of disorders and how they're treated was going to be such a big thing in this story, but apparently it is. Naturally, I don't have albinism, so I don't know everything about it, but I'm trying to research it as best I can. If any of my readers happen to be connected to the demographic any more than I am, and know more, by all means, feel free to drop me a line and chat, I'd love to listen!**

**Naturally, Jack doesn't _actually_ have albinism, he's just Jack Frost. But no one knows that. ;)**

**And yes, for the record, saying albino is considered rude by some, because you're putting the disorder before the person. They would usually rather be "Jack, who has albinism," than "the albino." And a lot of them, like Jack, were teased in school, and being called albino brings back bad memories, which is another reason they might not like the term. But some people with albinism wear the term albino proudly. It depends on the person. As with any disorder, the best course of action is to just ask how they would like you to treat them when you're unsure, but default to treating them like you would any other person. **


End file.
